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William Moloney堅韌不拔的美國人仍然充滿希望，決心重新過上好日子
威廉·莫洛尼，觀點撰稿人 - 20 年 11 月 26 日
在大蕭條最嚴重的時候，富蘭克林·羅斯福用一句名言“我們唯一需要恐懼的就是恐懼本身”來團結他的同胞。他說得多麽正確，這些話對今天的美國人產生了多大的共鳴，近一年來，由於新型冠狀病毒這個看不見的敵人，美國人一直生活在恐懼的氛圍中。
那麽，當我們準備慶祝最具美國特色的節日感恩節時，我們能對這個國家的心態說些什麽呢？
美國人是一個驚人的堅韌和天生樂觀的民族。盡管封鎖造成了巨大的社會和經濟損失，但大多數人都相信他們和他們的國家將以某種方式度過這場危機。盡管如此，人們對各級領導層深感不信任，從總統到州長再到市長，盡管各州的情況各不相同。
人們對有關病毒及其應對方法的信息不足且往往相互矛盾感到非常不滿。人們明白“病例”、“住院”和“死亡”之間的區別，但人們普遍懷疑媒體和政府都喜歡關注“病例”，因為“病例”提供的數字更大、更可怕，有助於支持封鎖的說法，而其他兩個類別則沒有。
人們幾乎普遍對政客們感到憤怒，他們向普通公民施加了嚴重的扼殺就業的限製，而自己卻免於製裁，人們也越來越意識到這場流行病如何大大加劇了收入不平等。
感恩節前一周，美國疾病控製與預防中心 (CDC) “強烈建議”美國人在感恩節假期期間不要出行，因為最近新冠病例激增，這無疑不利於全國的情緒。同一份谘詢報告還說，任何未在家庭中呆過 14 天的人都不應成為晚宴的客人。這是否意味著要取消邀請休假在家的祖母或海軍陸戰隊兒子？
總體而言，美國人感覺到，封鎖製度對教堂比對賭場更嚴厲，而且相當隨意地侵入人類生活的最私密方麵，這並不合他們的心意。基層的公民抗命並非遙不可及。
然而，我們有充分的理由認為，這種可怕的情況不一定會發生。這位作家年紀夠大，他還記得 1968 年可怕的分裂和災難，也清楚地記得洛杉磯那個淒冷的夜晚，幾分鍾之內，羅伯特·肯尼迪躺在大使酒店廚房的血泊中，喜極而泣，卻變成了絕望的淚水。那一刻，我們許多“年輕理想主義者”感到美國的希望已經破滅。
但我們錯了。憑借美國人特有的堅韌，我們和這個國家繼續生活。這並不總是羅納德·裏根的《美國的早晨》中所捕捉到的那種情緒，但好日子比壞日子多得多——有些日子真的很美好。
美國人從來不相信，也永遠不會相信，他們的國家是一個可怕的國家，有著可怕的過去，正如一些人所說的那樣。我們知道，美國是一個非凡的國家——不僅因為它擁有令人驚歎的美麗、巨大的機遇和善良的人民，還因為我們決心永不放棄我們的先輩為之奮鬥和犧牲的自由。
最近，當我看到壯麗的落日從雄偉的落基山脈背後緩緩落下時，我被米茲·蓋納 (Mitzi Gaynor) 的歌聲所感染，她演唱了《南太平洋》中的《斜眼樂觀主義者》(Cock-Eyed Optimist)，這首歌的開頭是“我聽說人類正在走向衰落，而且已經不遠了”，結尾是“但我像個傻瓜一樣被一種叫做希望的東西困住了，我無法把它從我的心裏趕走，這顆心裏沒有。”
當各行各業的美國人與他們關心的人一起坐下來吃感恩節晚餐時，我相信絕大多數人也會感受到那種叫做希望的東西。
威廉·莫洛尼 (William Moloney) 博士是科羅拉多基督教大學百年研究所的保守思想研究員，曾在牛津大學和倫敦大學學習。他曾任科羅拉多州教育專員。
Resilient Americans remain hopeful and determined to reclaim their lives
BY WILLIAM MOLONEY, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 11/26/20
In the depths of the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt rallied his countrymen by famously stating that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” How right he was, and how those words resonate for Americans today who, for nearly a year, have lived in a climate of fear owing to the unseen enemy of a novel coronavirus.
So, what can we say about the national state of mind as we prepare to celebrate that most American of all holidays, Thanksgiving?
Americans are an amazingly resilient and naturally optimistic people. Despite the massive social and economic damage caused by the lockdowns, most people are confident that they and their country will somehow get through this crisis. Nonetheless, there is a deep distrust of the leadership being provided at every level, from the president to governors to mayors, albeit with wide variations from state to state.
There is great dissatisfaction about the inadequate, and often contradictory, information about the virus and how to deal with it. People understand the difference among “cases,” “hospitalizations” and “deaths,” but there is widespread suspicion that the media and government alike prefer focusing on “cases,” which offer bigger, scarier numbers useful for supporting the lockdown narrative while the other two categories do not.
There is nearly universal anger over politicians who impose severe job-killing restrictions on ordinary citizens while exempting themselves, and also growing consciousness of how the pandemic has greatly exacerbated income inequality.
The national mood surely was not helped when, just a week before Thanksgiving, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “strongly recommended” that Americans not travel during the Thanksgiving holiday because of recent spikes in COVID-19 cases. The same advisory said that no one who has not been part of the household for 14 days should be a dinner guest. Would this mean disinviting your grandmother or your Marine son who is home on leave?
Overall, Americans are sensing that a lockdown regime that is tougher on churches than on casinos, and quite comfortable intruding into the most private aspects of human life, is not to their liking. Civil disobedience at the grassroots level is not far-fetched.
Yet there is good reason to think that such dire scenarios need not come to pass. This writer is old enough to remember the horrific divisiveness and calamities of 1968, and to vividly recall that bleak night in Los Angeles when in the space of minutes, tears of joy turned to tears of despair as an unseeing Robert Kennedy lay in a pool of his own blood on the kitchen floor of the Ambassador Hotel. Many of us “young idealists,” in that moment, felt hope for America had been extinguished.
But we were wrong. With characteristic American resilience, we and the country pushed ahead with living. It wasn’t always the mood captured in Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America,” but the good days were much more numerous than the bad — and some were truly grand.
Americans never have believed, and never will, that theirs is a terrible country with a terrible past, as some suggest. We know that America is an exceptional country — not just because of its awesome beauty, vast opportunity and fundamentally decent people, but also because of our determination never to give up those liberties our forebears fought and died to attain and protect.
As I recently watched a glorious sunset slipping behind the majestic Rocky Mountains, my reverie was enhanced by the voice of the delightful Mitzi Gaynor singing “Cock-Eyed Optimist” from “South Pacific,” which begins, “I hear the human race is falling on its face and hasn’t very far to go,” and ends, “But I’m stuck like a dope with a thing called hope, and I can’t get it out of my heart, not this heart.”
As Americans from all walks of life sit down for Thanksgiving dinner with those they care about, I am confident the great majority also will feel that thing called hope.
William Moloney, Ph.D., is a Fellow in Conservative Thought at Colorado Christian University’s Centennial Institute who studied at Oxford and the University of London. He is a former Colorado Commissioner of Education.
